I am sixteen, and I’m working at my family’s restaurant. There is a Christmas party group who has booked out the front room. This one old guy keeps complaining every time I bring him food or take the finished plates away.

When dessert comes, he makes a snide comment and I burst into tears. I get back to the kitchen, and my dad sees me crying.

Dad: “What’s wrong?”

Me: “It’s okay. Don’t worry.”

Dad: “Was it a customer?”

Me: “…”

Within seconds, my dad storms out of the kitchen and asks the entire front room: 

Dad: “Who made my daughter cry?!” 

The room goes silent, and everyone points out the jerk. 

Dad: “You think you’re tough, eh? Making a child cry? You enjoy doing that?! You’re going now, and you’re not welcome back!” 

Customer: “But she wasn’t doing a good job!” 

Dad: “And you’re not doing a good job as a human, so go f*** yourself.”

I miss working with him!

I worked in a certain sandwich shop chain at my local mall food court for about eight years. (That was not the original career plan, but that’s how things worked out.) Generally speaking, our customers were great. But every so often, we’d get an individual with a unique outlook.

Customer: “I want a six-inch Italian sandwich.”

Me: “Sure thing. Would you like Italian bread?” 

Customer: “I want what comes with it.”

I cut a six-inch Italian roll and went to the next step, like the thousands of sandwiches I’d already made. 

Me: “Would you like lettuce and tomato?”

Customer: “I want what comes with it.” 

Me: “Sure, you can have any of these veggies on it. Would you like lettuce and tomato?”

Customer: “I just want what comes with it.”

Me: “Extra meat and cheese costs extra, but you can have whatever veggies you want. Would you like lettuce and tomato?”

Customer: “Just give me what comes with it.”

Me: “Sir, you can have whatever you want from here to here. Any of these things come with it. Only extra meat and cheese cost extra. Would you like lettuce and tomato?”

Customer: “All I want is what comes with it! Why are you doing this to me? Why is this so hard?”

At this point, I was at a loss for words. I was not trained to handle a customer who refused to take “You can have whatever you want” for an answer. Fortunately, my manager figured out what the customer wanted and stepped in.

Manager: “All right, sir. This is an Italian sandwich, so it comes with lettuce and tomato. It also comes with onions and olives. Then it comes with these meats and this cheese. Then we wrap it up. That will be [price of the sandwich].”

Customer: *Visibly relieved* “Thank you. That’s all I wanted. I’m sorry for losing my temper, but I have really bad hypertension right now. The doctor says I need to avoid stress or I might have a heart attack.”

We never saw him again, but I truly hope he recovered to the point where he wasn’t in danger of having a heart attack from ordering a sandwich.

My car was having an odd issue. It ended up being a major component in the transmission. FORTUNATELY, it was still under warranty, so the dealership and main company paid for it all. It took them four days to get the part in and my car fixed, and I had a loaner the whole time, all fully covered.

They get done, I go in and get my car, I start pulling out of the parking lot… and I immediately swing back around to the service area.

Me: “Heyyyy.”

Service Desk: “Oh, hi! I’m sorry, was something forgotten?”

Me: “I was wondering if I could talk with whoever worked on my car real quick? There’s an issue.”

Fortunately, said fellow IS available, and he comes out.

Mechanic: “What’s the issue, sir?”

Me: “Well, did you take the car for a test drive at all, even around the parking lot?”

Mechanic: “Of course, why?”

Me: “When it’s idling, it’s fine, but the second I put my foot on the gas at all, there’s a horrible rattling or grinding sound.”

The mechanic gives me a look like he doesn’t believe me and is just humoring me as we head to the car. I hop in, turn the car on, and rev the engine, and there’s the noise. His eyes go huge. We pop open the hood and, at his request, I rev it a few more times.

Mechanic: “Oh, God. Turn it off! I found it!”

Me: *Doing so* “What happened?!”

About three seconds later, he closes my hood, hand held up with something shiny in it.

Mechanic: “Someone who was in charge of putting the covers back on left the magnetic head of the torque wrench on a nut.”

Me: “Man, I’m glad I didn’t have my music up yet so I could hear that! If that had fallen off in the middle of the road, I’d have had a heart attack.”

Mechanic: “You should be good now. If anything else makes a weird noise, let us know.”

I thanked him and drove home, still with the radio off. Thankfully, no more noises — yet!

When I was in high school, I really wanted to learn Spanish. It turned out I was lousy at it, but I kept working on it, through the required two years of foreign language, all the way through senior year. I got passing grades but never really improved.

In the spring of my senior year, near the end of a class, my teacher was done with the lesson and just started talking about things she probably shouldn’t have.

Señora: “The worst Spanish teacher we ever had at this school was Señor [Teacher #1].”

Me: “He taught me freshman year.”

It seemed like she suddenly understood something.

Señora: “Oh… Well, the second worst was Señor [Teacher #2].”

Me: “After doing badly freshman year, I took Spanish in summer school from Señor [Teacher #2].”

Señora: “Oh…”

All these years later, I remember the names of [Teacher #1] and [Teacher #2], but not the name of the Señora.

I used to work as a librarian at a college. We were looking to hire a new librarian, and I went out to lunch with one of the candidates.

Candidate: “Who’s paying for lunch?”

Me: “The university.”

He ordered the most expensive thing on the menu. I told the Search Committee, “Don’t offer him the job. He won’t take it.”

They offered him the job. He turned it down. We lost the position.